It was Lynn who had suggested Emily stay when Luke took Vera away for the weekend. To Venice, where she had always wanted to go but never had. Luke had wanted John to make himself available, to pop in to make sure she’d eaten. At first she’d tried to hide this new facet of her disease, but there were too many times now when she couldn’t find the energy to make it down the stairs, or the inclination to eat if she had done. It was strange how food had become merely a requirement. Once, whole afternoons would be planned around cooking, tasting, savouring, sharing. But the ingredients of a meal had returned somehow to their most raw function, a necessity that filled, or stole, a few minutes of her day. Anyway, John couldn’t pop in. His play had matinees at the weekends.
He was there however, when Luke came to say goodbye. She’d made it downstairs that day and was wrapped up in a blanket near the fire. Emily had let John in and she’d heard them joking easily in the hallway. Emily was less rabbit-like with John, less jittery and likely to dart. He had a way of doing that, of encouraging confidence; or perhaps, Lynn mused, it was because Emily felt unthreatened by his sexuality. Lynn, on the other hand, was petrified of it; terrified by the thought of the conversation she planned to have with him. Had to have, if there was to be a chance of making things right between them, and between him and his brother. Had to have, if she was to practise what she intended to preach to Emily: a conviction that talking, unloading, unravelling, truth-finding, was the only way to peace. Was it? Was there such thing as peace? There was no way of knowing but it had at least to be tried. If Lynn was sure of anything now, then it was this: try, do. Do something, that was the thing. Something… more. While there was time; if there was time. Lynn felt itchy to talk again to Emily. But first there was her son, her youngest, whom she had wronged so deeply with perfection, and spoiled with extra slices of cake.
They didn’t know she was listening. Lynn, carrying a plate of homemade banana cake, stood at the door to their shared bedroom and smothered a chuckle with her free hand. Luke was teaching John about girls. They were seven and five. “You have to say they’re pretty,” said Luke. “Even if they’re not. Then they kiss you like this.” He smooched his hand dramatically. “Except on the lips, and if you do it for a really long time then you have to move to France.”
“Mummy says you shouldn’t lie,” John stated, seriously, wrinkling up his nose.
“That’s true,” replied Luke, weighing this up against the other things he’d learned. “But Daddy tells Mummy she looks pretty even when Mummy says she’s so messy she’s going to pull a hedge back into the woods.”
“No he doesn’t. He says she looks stunning,” John corrected, again with complete earnestness.
“Stunning,” laughed Luke, practising the sweep of it.
“Stunning, stunning, stunning!” shouted John, dancing around the room, singing it louder and louder, in delight at his older brother’s giggle.
They began a circuit of the room, sock-clad feet jumping from bed to bed to rug to toy chest. Lynn had banned this game in case of falling, but she waited a moment.
“Angel’s cooking lunch,” John grinned as he came into the sitting room and sat down next to her on the big sofa. “Smells good. I might stay.” He raised his eyebrows mischievously and Lynn wanted to relax into his jollity, to wait one moment more. But she nodded at him solemnly. He sat. “Why ever are you on the sofa?” he asked. “You never sit on the sofa. You’d be closer to the fire in your chair.”
“I wanted to sit by you,” she answered gently. “I wanted to sit near you while I, tell you something.”
“Tell me what?” He leant forward roguishly, as though about to revel in gossip.
“I don’t think a waistcoat is enough you see, of an explanation.”
John inspected her face carefully, looking she presumed for signs of delusion.
“I know, John,” she told him simply. “I know. And I need you to know that I know, and that I’ve always known, and that I should have let you tell me.”
“Known what, Mother?” John asked, shifting uncomfortably.
“About you.”
He said nothing.
“I’m sorry I made you keep it secret. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me for it. I want you to know that, well, whatever your choices, whatever your, sexuality, I only want you to be happy.”
“Mother, good grief!” John exclaimed, clearly unsettled by the directness of a conversation they’d buried for so long. “What are you talking about?”
“Are you happy, John? Do you, do you have somebody?”
“Mother, really. Angel, come on in with lunch won’t you? We’re going quite barmy with hunger!” There was a responsive clattering from the kitchen.
“John,” Lynn tried again. “I made you hide yourself, I know that, but you needn’t now. It’s my fault. Church and chastity and… claptrap! I drove you away. From all of us. I understand that’s why you keep things so private, so separate. I don’t blame you for it, and if only Luke knew too he might realise - ”
“There’s nothing for Luke to know. Nothing at all to tell Luke,” John interrupted quickly, firmly.
Lynn stopped. John’s eyes had turned to steel, barbed with darkness, and terror? She looked at him for a long time. There was so much she wanted to ask him, so many things she wanted to know. But she knew without pressing further that he would not allow her to fix it. She would die holding onto this mistake.
Slowly, she nodded her assent. She had kept her silence, misguidedly, for almost two decades, if he wanted it a few months longer, it was the least she owed him, the least she could do. Do. Something.
Emily continued to clatter softly in the kitchen. In the background, a Sinatra she and John both loved started up on the radio. Usually John would have hummed along, but today he was silent. Lynn thought about reaching for his hand… Then the doorbell sounded.
“I’ll get it,” John announced. He stood up quickly and strode into the hall.
Alone on the sofa, Lynn lifted herself slightly and peered out of the window. Luke was on the doorstep. His car was still on, churning up cold air on the street. Vera was sitting in it.
“No rehearsals today?” Lynn heard Luke ask as his brother opened the door and together they made their way back into the sitting room. It was a genuine question, but the two of them had long ago stopped being able to decipher digs from authenticity.
“No,” John snapped back.
Lynn flinched. It was all her fault. She thought she had at least done this thing well, this thing that was motherhood, but -
Luke appeared at the door. She tidied the blanket over herself and attempted to look as solid as she could, but she noticed Luke’s face clouding with anxiety at the sight of her.
“Good,” said Luke to John earnestly, staying by the door. “It’s good you came.”
“You’re the one leaving for the weekend.”
Luke scowled and turned away from his brother. “I can’t stay long Mother, I just wanted to stop by before we left to check you have everything you need. Is Emily here? Is she looking after you?”
“She’s making lunch,” Lynn affirmed. “Your fiancée didn’t bother to come in then?”
“I said not to. We have to hurry for our flight.”
“Of course.” Lynn flapped her hand towards the door. “To Venice.” She was unable to resist the instinctive irritation. “Off you go then.”
Luke hovered. “But you’re okay Mother?”
“Of course I am.”
“Emily knows about your night-time medication?”
“She’s here every day Luke,” Lynn answered impatiently, unfairly taking her frustration out on him, he who could handle it.
He nodded, apologetically, heavily. It wasn’t right of her. But as he was turning to go an idea caught hold.
“Emily!” Lynn called into the kitchen. “Emily!” She turned towards her son. “No need for a messenger. You can give any instructions you want yourself.”
It was a necessarily cruel trick. The discomfort on Emily’s face at seeing Luke again was obvious to all of them. Luke tried to negate it with extra enthusiasm but Emily’s distress ruffled his own composure, and his false, raised tones seemed only to make Emily more nervous. At the first chance she got she scuttled for the door. Still, it had been at her most abject that Emily had last found the strength to talk. Perhaps, Lynn considered, looking to John, it was at their most abject when everyone found their greatest vigour. And so she was hopeful. And purposeful.
“You have the number for the hotel,” Luke said once Emily had left and John, who had decided now against lunch, had also made a rapid exit. “I’ve left it on your nightstand. Call me if you need anything. Promise to. I’ll be back on Sunday night.”
Indulgingly now, already half-thinking about Emily’s reaction to her son, Lynn promised. But she knew that the only reason he’d receive a call was if she keeled over and died, and Luke hovered for a second more, clutching his coat tightly, clearly knowing this too. They stared at each other then, and Lynn could sense his need for affirmation, for comfort, for the touch of her hand, and almost, almost she spoke. But in the end neither of them said anything, and Luke turned for the door, away to Venice where Lynn knew he would forget all about Emily, and John, and his dying mother, as he lost himself in his youthful fiancée.